Page 43 of Lethal Abduction

They listen to everything. Watch everything. Even when we shower. For all I know, they monetize that footage, too.

Everything inside SK is for sale. It’s like some great human supermarket.

At least so far they’re only selling my soul, instead of my body. Or the organsinsidemy body.

They do that here, too.

“The client’s name is Paul.” Yrsa hands me the file, and I read it quickly, absorbing the basic facts and the specifics of their recent online chats. All it takes is one mistake, and Paul will be gone, which means that Yrsa will have to run the dreaded Loop.

Yrsa had been backpacking around Australia for over a year when she answered an ad for remote work on an outback farm. She’s estranged from her family and split from the boyfriend she came to Australia with, no doubt the reason the traffickers targeted her. She thinks it will be a long time before anyone might start looking for her. They’ll never find her, of course. These people don’t leave tracks.

Yrsa is model beautiful, with a sheet of white-blonde hair and a body made for the catwalk, so she does a lot of live calls, which we make whenever a client gets suspicious because they haven’t spoken to their online date in person. She also speaks six languages, which makes her even more valuable.

I make the call, trying desperately not to think about the shy man on the other end of the line who is just desperate for company.

I work through the day. Scam after scam, chat after chat. I’m working three different clients at once, two men and one woman. All in the same time zone, so I can work them on the same shift. Three screens, three open chats that I feed all day.

We work a twelve-hour shift, with quick breaks for food and the bathroom. If we make target, we are allowed to take physical exercise outside for half an hour. If we haven’t, we run the Loop.

By the time I make it back to my bunk beneath Lucky’s, I’m shattered from the long hours of lies and emotional manipulation. I share a bunk space with Lucky, Yrsa, and Mary, aFilipino girl who was recruited by a so-called friend, who traded her own freedom for Mary’s capture. It’s one of the only ways people can escape from here—offering to recruit others to take their place.

Our bunk space is one of the better ones in the huge dormitory. It’s at the opposite end to the bathroom, in a dark corner. Lucky organized it for us. She’s a computer programmer, so she gets certain privileges. Lucky doesn’t work the scams—she writes the code that sets up fake replicas of popular online payment websites.

I lie on my side, my heartbeat tired and thready, wondering how long I will survive this weird, dystopian place.

I’m not Lucky.I can’t write code. And I’m not dead inside, like many of the poor fuckers who have been here too long.

You’ve survived worse, Abby. Remember El Buen Pastor.

It’s true. I have survived worse. And there was nobody coming to look for me then either.

I’ve considered all the possibilities, of course. Gone through the false hope.

My parents?

Unlikely. The way I disappeared is too similar to the way I left the first time. I doubt they’ll even find the car I was in. Something tells me the Banderos were smart about getting rid of it.

Darya?

She has a newborn baby. And I told her I needed space. I told her I wasn’t sure I’d ever come back at all.

Darya knows what it is to run. She’ll miss me, and thinking of how hurt she must be by my silence twists my insides into such knots it physically makes me sick, so I try not to.

But she will understand, even if it makes her sad. She’ll think I’ve cut ties to keep her safe, as well as myself.

Which leaves Dimitry.

My body hunches in on itself, sadness clawing at my gut.

There’s nothing worse than the pain of regret.

I thought I’d learned that, during the years I was in El Buen Pastor and in the time I was estranged from my parents.

But I had no fucking idea. No idea at all.

If I think of how close I was to calling Dimitry the day I was kidnapped, it will drive me mad.

Instead, I close my eyes, forcing myself into the half-waking, half-sleeping place that has become my only refuge. My memories of Dimitry are like titles on a streaming platform that I mentally scroll through before sleep every night, choosing which to indulge in.

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